Sunday, November 20, 2011

Fort Kochi, Kerala, day 3; tea, spices, & Indian Barbies,

In the morning, we went back to TeaPot and had a great omelet and tea. Wandering through the streets, we saw a convenience store that offered international calls, so Shelley went in to make a call to Canada. Stacked on top of other toys were the most interesting things we saw all day, including looking around the Tibetan shop down the street, a whole collection of Indian Diva Barbie, including special edition Expressions of India Roopvati Rajasthani Barbie. They still only weighed 7.25 ounces but at least four out of six were brunettes.

We spent most of the day avoiding the heat at the guesthouse, getting to know the man who worked there. He told us when he was finished work, he would bring us to get our tickets for the next day and then we'd visit an herb shop in Jew Town.

The part of town looked much more dilapidated than the tourist area we'd spent our time in, but still had a lot of character. We came through a gate into a long courtyard with rows of drying ginger root being portioned on large brown sacs. Piles of ginger lay by the stairs where we went up to a small shop crammed with bags of herbs, candies, and small vials of essential oils. The woman working inside had a lot of fun talking to us and seemed pretty excited when they found out I wasn't married. Fortunately, from a few other incidences in my travels, I was getting used to marriage proposals!